Dolores County hunt produced world-record typical mule deer buck

Doug Burris, Jr. put Dolores County on the map for mule-deer hunters when he shot a 226 4/8-inch typical buck there on Oct. 19, 1972, a record that still sits at the top of the Boone and Crockett books. The hunt was no fluke. Burris had been hunting the area since 1969, and Boone and Crockett says his first three trips produced three solid bucks before the fourth one turned into the world-record deer.

The buck came from the San Juan National Forest after Burris and his companions, Jack Smith, Robbie Roe and Bruce Winters, drove in before dawn on opening day in a Jeep. Boone and Crockett says the group had gotten a tip about a big deer up Proven Canyon, and Burris killed the animal with one shot from a .264 Winchester Magnum. The club lists Burris’s kill location as Dolores County, Colorado, and recognizes the deer as the No. 1 typical mule deer ever recorded.

For Dolores County, a place of about 2,326 people spread across roughly 1,064 square miles, the record is more than a trophy tale. The county seat is Dove Creek, and the country around it rises from about 5,900 feet to 14,046 feet on Mount Wilson, with much of the surrounding terrain tied to mule-deer habitat and public land. The Dolores Ranger District alone manages 597,373 acres across Dolores, Montezuma and San Miguel counties, which is part of what keeps the area in the conversation among hunters looking for access to big-game country.

That reputation still depends on the health of the herd. Colorado wildlife officials say the San Juan Basin supports about 23,000 to 24,000 mule deer, but Colorado Parks and Wildlife also says mule deer populations in western Colorado have fluctuated sharply since the 1960s and have declined in recent years. That makes Burris’s deer both a landmark and a reminder of how rare a buck of that size is in country where habitat, access and herd conditions all have to line up at once.

Burris’s annual Colorado trips with his San Antonio hunting partners became known as the poor boy trip, a nod to the shared gear and shared know-how that defined those hunts. The Boone and Crockett Club later honored him with a Sagamore Hill Award for typical antlers, underscoring how one Dolores County hunt became part of Western big-game history.